First read: New books from T-Jeff to Tarzan the J-Man

8:22 AM,
Oct. 5, 2012

Written by

Anne Bendheim
| @AnneBendheim

Bunches o' books this week. And, since it's still election season (and we've had about as much as we can take of that), we'll make a few suggestions about books involving some commanders-in-chief of bygone days.

MASTER OF THE MOUNTAIN: THOMAS JEFFERSON AND HIS SLAVES by Henry Wiencek (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30)

Are there really people out there who don't know the author of the Declaration of Independence was the owner of many human beings held in slavery? Ah, the paradox. That he could write so well about freedom and deny it to so many. Why didn't he free his slaves? The author suggests that we ...